Book Review of “The Devil Dragon Pilot”

In his first novel, The Devil Dragon Pilot, former U.S. Marine Corps attack helicopter pilot and ROA member Lawrence “Cheese” Colby, has produced a fast-reading and clinching military thriller that would earn a place alongside any Clancy novel.

Placed somewhere around the contemporary scenario of U.S.-China tensions, Devil Dragon is a story of two friends who ought to be foes; both consumed by love of home, family, and flying their nations’ most technologically advanced warplanes.

Using his impressive command of subject, Colby keeps the reader turning pages, as the novel’s novel plot unfolds within an absorbing web of nicely done character development, superb technical and compelling national security detail (all cleared by DoD reviewers by the way – no one is going to jail), and old-fashioned cliffhanging drama.

It is fun to go “behind the text” and imagine this new writer joyously and compulsively scribing his drama. Colby, now a colonel in the Air Force Reserve who has apparently flown just about everything, teaches strategy at the National Defense University; he wrote us, “I looked around some of the current aviation and military themed books and movies, and could not find a fictional story that focused on the Air Force Reserve. With that in mind, I wrote an outline for The Devil Dragon Pilot that prominently featured an Air Force Reserve pilot.

“There was no way I could write a book with my Washington, DC, based schedule, so I got up at 4 AM every day for a year and wrote one or two pages every morning. Air Force Reserve Captain Ford Stevens was born as the main character!

“Ford is a B-1 pilot who is recruited by his best friend, a Chinese Air Force pilot, to [dear reader, you’ll have to pick up Devil Dragon to learn just what Ford’s friend has in mind]. It features Washington DC politics, bureaucratic red-tape, espionage, and high-speed flight. My goal was to put Air Force Reservists in the spotlight.

“Book 2 comes out this summer, titled The Black Scorpion Pilot. We will once again see Ford Stevens test his aviation skills, human endurance, and his ability to survive an almost insurmountable situation.”

Among The Devil Dragon Pilot’s overwhelmingly positive Amazon reviews, this one is typical: “A great first novel! Riveting story line and very well researched. The author nails many facets of the US intelligence apparatus, military doctrine and the reality of military service, especially Air Force and Naval Aviation. He does a great job building the characters and relationships. Pick this book up now, you won’t be disappointed!”